California water regulators on Tuesday adopted the state's first rules for mandatory cutbacks in urban water use as the region's catastrophic drought enters its fourth year.
The emergency regulations, which require some communities to trim water use by as much as 36 percent, were approved unanimously late Tuesday by the State Water Resources Control Board weeks after Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown stood in a drying mountain meadow and ordered statewide rationing.
"This is a community crisis," said water resources board chairwoman Felicia Marcus as testimony began in a daylong hearing on the rules on Tuesday. "We want to get this as right as we can."